Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Webbo]

3 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Honestly stunned by the right wing dogma so many of you have fallen for. This is not what has made our country great. This is the path backwards.

Do you ever think maybe you've fallen for leftwing dogma?

[Guest Kopfkino]

30 minutes ago, Captain... said:

I guess it depends on alternatives and whether going to University is going to be the norm for education, we don't want thousands of kids ending up at shit universities. The other  problem will be funds will come in gradually, so a university could start going downhill and get worse and worse over years but still be getting funds from when it was producing good graduates and trading off its reputation. It is all well and good letting universities fail, streamlining the whole system so you have only good strong universities left, but what happens to those kids that have ended up choosing the wrong university and had their careers ruined before they have even started?

 

 

We have thousands of kids ending up at shit universities anyway. There's a reason the front-office functions of banks mainly recruit from Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Imperial, and Warwick or the top strategy consultants from Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial and Durham. I'm not saying everything else is shit because there are many many good unis out there and some which have a small specialisation within a poorer uni environment. Now, we just send kids to London Met, London Met takes the 9k and the kid leaves with little enhancement of employment prospects and a 'debt' he isn't ever going to pay. As many have already said on here, they wish they had chosen another route or been better informed rather than just being on a conveyor belt through to graduation. It's not like there aren't other opportunities out there and maybe this would give the much needed recalibration of the labour market. Again, the problem of choosing the wrong uni isn't solved at the moment. Okay maybe if a uni fails whilst attending that uni, there is a problem for the student, something I'd have to work out a solution for admittedly. 

 

Okay a uni could be trading off reputation but if the quality of their graduates starts to drop off, this imposes a cost on the employer and as with any business, it would look to switch supplier. It's not a bad thing that it still has funds coming in from successful graduates as it is being rewarded for it's training. It is in everyone's interests for it to be able to fund getting back to that place. But again now we have a situation where universities are offering a low quality service and still getting funding to carry on, with no real incentives to offer a better service. In fact, on a slightly different note, under this system, if graduates agree to be audited a university can monitor their progress and if they see they are not earning as much as their peers, it is in the interest of the university to offer extra training and education to boost earnings. 

[Guest MattP]

Just now, Webbo said:

Do you ever think maybe you've fallen for leftwing dogma?

No chance. 

 

Free Dance and Genderqueer studies for all is going to take this country back to the top of the World.

[Carl the Llama]

4 minutes ago, MattP said:

No chance. 

 

Free Dance and Genderqueer studies for all is going to take this country back to the top of the World.

[David Guiza]

9 minutes ago, MattP said:

No chance. 

 

Free Dance and Genderqueer studies for all is going to take this country back to the top of the World.

You can fight it all you like but eventually the rhythm will get you

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Do you ever think maybe you've fallen for leftwing dogma?

It's a fair point but the reality is I probably wouldn't go as far as Labour are currently suggesting on a range of issues. But I do believe in the power of the state to do good.

Many of you appear to go far, far further than even the furthest right members of the Tory party would publically go. 

I genuinely think they're views that are dangerous to the future of this country. 

[Captain...]

2 minutes ago, KingGTF said:

 

We have thousands of kids ending up at shit universities anyway. There's a reason the front-office functions of banks mainly recruit from Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Imperial, and Warwick or the top strategy consultants from Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial and Durham. I'm not saying everything else is shit because there are many many good unis out there and some which have a small specialisation within a poorer uni environment. Now, we just send kids to London Met, London Met takes the 9k and the kid leaves with little enhancement of employment prospects and a 'debt' he isn't ever going to pay. As many have already said on here, they wish they had chosen another route or been better informed rather than just being on a conveyor belt through to graduation. It's not like there aren't other opportunities out there and maybe this would give the much needed recalibration of the labour market. Again, the problem of choosing the wrong uni isn't solved at the moment. Okay maybe if a uni fails whilst attending that uni, there is a problem for the student, something I'd have to work out a solution for admittedly. 

 

Okay a uni could be trading off reputation but if the quality of their graduates starts to drop off, this imposes a cost on the employer and as with any business, it would look to switch supplier. It's not a bad thing that it still has funds coming in from successful graduates as it is being rewarded for it's training. It is in everyone's interests for it to be able to fund getting back to that place. But again now we have a situation where universities are offering a low quality service and still getting funding to carry on, with no real incentives to offer a better service. In fact, on a slightly different note, under this system, if graduates agree to be audited a university can monitor their progress and if they see they are not earning as much as their peers, it is in the interest of the university to offer extra training and education to boost earnings. 

I don't disagree, I think the whole university system needs looking at, but in the process of an overhaul I would not be comfortable with pure market forces dictating things. The other way to look at it would be that it would be very difficult for universities to turn things round without extra funding/support from the state. Whereas Universities with a good reputation will always do well because they attract better students, even if they don't actually teach them any better.

 

The other risk is that Universities will start focussing on finding applicants that can make them money, rather than ones that are true academics and will study something not financially optimal, like History of Art.

[Guest MattP]

44 minutes ago, toddybad said:

It's a fair point but the reality is I probably wouldn't go as far as Labour are currently suggesting on a range of issues. But I do believe in the power of the state to do good.

Many of you appear to go far, far further than even the furthest right members of the Tory party would publically go. 

I genuinely think they're views that are dangerous to the future of this country. 

What has been said in here that would seriously be anywhere near the furthest right parts of the Tory party? 

 

That's more hyperbolic nonsense.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

What has been said in here that would seriously be anywhere near the furthest right parts of the Tory party? 

 

That's more hyperbolic nonsense.

I guess what I'm getting are is that the neo-liberal consensus of the last 30 years, thatcherisn and all that went with it has failed. It's time for a new shift in politics. That may or may not be socialism but what i see from tories here are attempts to push further down a failed track rather than realising that race is run. The economy is really buggered atm and we're thr only country where wages haven't yet recovered from 2008. Change has to come and whatever it looks like, tory or labour, it needs a real and fundamental rethink. 

Edited 11 July 2017 by Guest

[Guest]

Imagine that someone had never been daft enough to call a general election. Imagine you’re heading a government with a clear majority in parliament. Imagine you’re still well ahead in the polls. Imagine a world shaped to your own desires.

The Maybot could. “A year ago, I stood outside Downing Street for the first time as prime minister, and I set out the defining characteristics of the government I was determined to lead,” she began her speech at the launch of the Taylor report into modern working practices in central London.

“I am convinced that the path that I set out in my first speech outside No 10, and upon which we have set ourselves as a government, remains the right one.” Nothing had changed.

But everything has changed. The Maybot’s operators looked on aghast. This was meant to be her big relaunch. Only it was looking very much like the previous relaunch. Maybot 3.0 was the same as Maybot 2.0, which was the same as Maybot 1.0. She was supposed to be sounding a note of contrition, a willingness to adapt to changed circumstances and yet here she was still insisting she had been right all along. It was just everyone else who had got things wrong.

Her operators tried a quick reboot but only succeeded in getting her to speak in passionless, mindless soundbites. Still it was marginally better for her to say nothing than to say the wrong thing. Besides which, meaningless soundbites weren’t an altogether inappropriate response to a report whose main findings were that workers should be renamed “dependent contractors” and that everyone should be encouraged to believe they could have a good job even if all those in good jobs relied on there being enough people prepared to do the crap jobs to make their lives good. Perhaps some might even think that the Maybot was doing a subtle pastiche of the Taylor report. There again, perhaps not.

While her system administrators were still busy reprogramming her, the Maybot pressed on. This was a good report. A very good report. Such a good report, in fact, that she was going to take it away and study it very carefully over the summer so that when parliament returned in September she could quietly ignore most of its recommendations. To implement any of the proposals would be to do a disservice to the blandness of the report.

 

Halfway through her speech, the empathy function briefly kicked in. The Maybot knew what it was like to be on a zero hours contract. She knew what it was like to be stuck in a job you hated and for which you didn’t have the relevant qualifications. She felt the crippling insecurity of knowing you could lose your job at any time. She shared their pain. “I want people to be able to go as far as their talents will take them,” she sobbed. Or a great deal further in her case.

“We will always be on the side of the hard workers,” she continued, momentarily forgetting that only the previous day she had confirmed that teachers would effectively be getting a pay cut. Still most teachers were probably a wee bit lazy at heart. Just like the doctors and nurses. Most of them didn’t know the meaning of a proper day’s work.

Belatedly, the rebooted Maybot flickered and remembered she was supposed to reboot. Now she came to think of it, the election hadn’t gone entirely to plan so she would quite like the Labour party’s help to get through a government agendashe couldn’t get past her own party. Then the memory faded. The election had actually been a great idea because it had got more women into parliament. Mostly Labour MPs. She ended by insisting her government had an unshakeable sense of purpose. Even though everyone in it thought it was on life support.

As the event drew to a close, the BBC’s Kamal Ahmed stood up to ask a question. “Camel, Camel,” the Maybot said absentmindedly. “I’m sorry, I was thinking of something else.” Some of her operators started openly weeping. The Maybot hadn’t even been able to maintain her concentration for the 30 minutes of her own relaunch. Press control, alt, delete.

[Buce]

5 hours ago, Strokes said:

Exactly this, If we are to more than survive outside of the European Union we have to invest in education and force businesses to do so as well. One of the major reasons I voted to leave was because of this toxic culture of cherry picking developed talent and not developing from within.

 

 

 

I thought it was because you're a massive racist?  

 

3 hours ago, MattP said:

No chance. 

 

Free Dance and Genderqueer studies for all is going to take this country back to the top of the World.

 

 wtf?

Edited 11 July 2017 by Buce

[DJ Barry Hammond]

 

Tutuion fees again I see...

 

Ok, if we look at this objectively and were tasked with creating a system for University funding from scratch neither the current system or the system of the past would be the result.

 

The idea a student should fund costs towards higher education is one that's difficult to argue against. However, the current system is a mess - largely down to the interest costs (6% from onset of course at the moment). It means the debt a student accumulates balloons to a figure many don't repay fully over a 30 year period - and some how the government used that fact as evidence of the system working? How is that working for anyone?!?

 

However, the alternative solution of making it 'free' again is also absurd, so what we end up with is a debate going round in circles that achieves nothing. The solution probably needs someone willing to say, let's scrap this and think again - a couple of areas I'd be thinking about are;

 

• No degree is equal - so why are the fees? Setting a 'maximum' has simply resulted in Universities charging the maximum for all their courses. Lifting a cap will eventually see market forces come into play - as well as common sense, because some degree should cost more than others. 
• In return for lifting the cap, force Universities to provide a significant portion of funded places on courses for those in families below a certain level of income. And especially the big ones! 
• Government provides extra incentives for key public service degrees (Doctors / Nurses / Teachers - especially in University areas where the locality has hiring issues).
• Tuition fees / Maintenance loans - only charge interest at the end of the course and at a fairer rate than now - it appears the government has moved to charging a commercial rate from onset so they can hand over the loan book to private hands. ALSO - significant terms should not change for those already on a course, it's a financial commitment, this wouldn't be accepted behaviour for a formal loan.
• Repayment terms - by logic, it is not only the individual that gain from the Univeristy education, it is their employer, therefore make the employer directly contribute a portion to the repayment costs as well (especially if they hire on an intern basis). Having this extra 'cost' would make companies think more about making jobs 'graduate only' and buck their ideas up in terms of provided vocational opportunities at 18+.

And finally - another claim the government made recently was that the numbers going to University suggested there wasn't a problem with the current system.

 

I would argue however, this is an unsafe conclusion to reach, given how much University is pushed as a career option at schools (other options barely get a look in), so much so that it probably means many that go feel they have no choice even if they do fully comprehend the debts involved. 

 

What we have here here is a monopoly on future ambition - which a free market party like the Conservatives should be dead against!

Edited 11 July 2017 by DJ Barry Hammond

[Guest]

Britain’s economy will lose momentum this year amid squeezed living standards and uncertainty over Brexit and the inconclusive election result, leading ratings agencies have predicted.

Moody’s said the qualms about talks in Brussels and the minority government have increased the UK’s political and financial risks. 

Analysts at the ratings agency said the UK economy has started to slow and they expect it to weaken considerably throughout the rest of the year, adding that it was unclear if the government could deliver a “reasonably good” Brexit deal. 

Moody’s said the government appeared to be pursuing objectives pointing towards a hard exit and said growth prospects over the medium term could be “materially weaker” if the UK fails to sign a trade deal allowing access to the single market. 

Kathrin Muehlbronner, a senior vice president at Moody’s, said: “The likelihood of an abrupt – and damaging exit – with no agreement and reversion to [World Trade Organization] trading rules has increased compared to our expectation after the referendum, with the government so far pursuing objectives that imply a hard exit.”

Weaker public finances could lead to a “further delay in reversing the rising tend of public debt”, the agency warned in a report. However, it said the Bank of England’s credibility should ensure financial stability, with exchange rate flexibility giving support for exports.

[Guest Foxin_mad]

Terrifying:

 

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21724827-labours-leader-will-badly-disappoint-his-young-supporters-jeremy-corbyn-and-bourgeois-dream

[Nick]

49 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

Terrifying:

 

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21724827-labours-leader-will-badly-disappoint-his-young-supporters-jeremy-corbyn-and-bourgeois-dream

 

Which parts of the article do you find terrifying?

[Captain...]

18 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

 

Which parts of the article do you find terrifying?

Probably all the long words...

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Foxin_mad said:

Terrifying:

 

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21724827-labours-leader-will-badly-disappoint-his-young-supporters-jeremy-corbyn-and-bourgeois-dream

Can you post the wording as it won't let me view it.

It must be pretty dystopian to be worse than the track we're currently on economically so i want to make sure i take it all in. 

[Captain...]

4 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Can you post the wording as it won't let me view it.

It must be pretty dystopian to be worse than the track we're currently on economically so i want to make sure i take it all in. 

JOHN LANCHESTER’S novel, “Capital”, provides a vivid portrait of life in a street in south London in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis. The residents watch with delight as the value of their houses rises ever upwards (“Having a house in Pepys Road was like being in a casino in which you were guaranteed to be a winner”). But there is trouble in paradise. The residents start receiving mysterious messages through their letterboxes proclaiming: “We want what you have”. Soon the messages are accompanied by videos and the tone becomes more threatening.

Mr Lanchester’s novel helps to solve the biggest puzzle in British politics: why the vast majority of young people voted for a 68-year-old who has spent his life flirting with organisations such as Sinn Fein and Hamas and backing hard-left causes like the public ownership of the means of production. One interpretation of Jeremy Corbyn’s rise, popular on the left, is that he is satisfying a pent-up desire for “real socialism”. But this ignores the fact that many people voted for the Islington MP despite his policies, not because of them. Mr Corbyn is a long-standing critic of the European Union who did as much as he could to ensure that Remain would fail while pretending to support it. Another interpretation, popular on the right, is that his supporters are woolly minded virtue-signallers, determined to prove how compassionate they are while ignoring the fact that Corbyn-style policies have invariably led to disaster. This ignores the fact that millennials have suffered more from the long stagnation that followed the financial crisis than any other generation. They have reason to be angry.

The most intelligent explanation has been provided by John Gray in the New Statesman. Mr Gray argues that Corbynism is “populism for the middle classes, serving the material and psychological needs of the relatively affluent and the well-heeled”. Far from being a repudiation of Tony Blair’s policies, Corbynism represents the completion of the takeover of Labour by middle-class people who put their own interests (such as free university education) above those of the working class. But Mr Gray’s strictures miss an important point: most young Corbynistas are not so much settled members of the middle class as frustrated would-be members. Ben Judah, a millennial-generation journalist and author of “This is London”, points out that members of his generation are angry that they have done everything they were told, from studying hard at school to going to university to trying to get a respectable job, but are still holding on by their fingertips.

The problem starts with Pepys Road. It is getting ever harder for young people to get a foot on the property ladder or find somewhere decent to rent. Thirty-year-old millennials are one-third less likely to own their own homes than baby boomers were at the same age, and spend £44,000 ($58,000) more on rent in their 20s than baby boomers did. The problem then extends to the workplace. The young have been on the sharp end of two economic shocks: the 2008 crisis, which squeezed living standards, and a technological revolution, which is doing for middle-class jobs what mechanisation did for working-class ones. Automation is hollowing out entry-level positions as companies use machines to do the routine tasks, such as searching through legal precedents or examining company accounts, that used to be done by junior employees. Companies of every type are cutting costs by ditching long-term perks such as defined-benefit pensions.

These problems reinforce each other. People who are subjected to flexible work contracts find it almost impossible to qualify for a mortgage. They are magnified by the London effect. Young people flock to the capital, where the best professional jobs are concentrated, but exorbitant property prices force them to migrate to the farthest corners of the city or to share with strangers. And they are curdled by generational antagonism. The Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, calculates that people aged 65-74 hold more wealth than those under 45, a group that is almost twice the size. Browse the Facebook pages where young Corbynistas hang out and you do not find hymns of praise to the workers’ control of the means of production, but laments for the indignities of modern metropolitan life and jeremiads against baby boomers who grabbed all the cheap houses and got free university education into the bargain.

 

As it picks itself up after the debacle of the election, the Conservative Party can take some hope from the bourgeois nature of these complaints. All is not lost so long as the party can update its promise of a property-owning democracy to suit the new generation. Ageing cabinet members who have done well out of the past 30 years should be replaced by young people who might have some experience of student debt and out-of-reach house prices. The Tories need policies for the frustrated middle class, particularly building new homes, including on the green belt. They also need to expose the contradictions of Corbynism. Far from democratising the bourgeois dream, Mr Corbyn’s policies would quickly kill it. Empowering trade unions would produce disruption, particularly of public services. Abolishing university fees would make it harder for Britain to compete as a knowledge economy. And drastically increasing public spending would damage international confidence and risk capital flight.

Time is running out. Mr Corbyn continues to mesmerise his young supporters with offers of free tuition and well paid jobs. The Conservatives continue to flail around offering bribes one minute and defending austerity the next. And the political class as a whole ignores the deeper causes of Britain’s stagnation, from stalled productivity to a failure to produce high-growth companies. The most likely outcome is that Britain will add an experiment with hardcore socialism to its experiment with Brexit. Then, the relative deprivation suffered by Mr Corbyn’s middle-class fans will be the least of the country’s problems

Edited 12 July 2017 by Captain...

[Guest]

 what's terrifying is how unprepared and badly managed brexit is through the current government when you hear what Barnier is saying today about a lack of clarity over the UK's position on a range of issues. Honestly think there needs to be some sort of criminal liability there if we fail to get a decent deal due to incompetence.

[Captain...]

It really isn't a terrible dystopian view, but a fair assessment of some of the challenges faced by Corbyn and the Tories, I do agree that it is populism, but it is only  working because the Tories are such a shower of directionless shite that anybody offering anything tangible immediately seems a better option.

 

It is more a damning assessment of the appalling state of British politics and our slow inevitable plod towards economic disaster that neither party  seem capable of addressing rather than anything particularly damning and terrifying of Corbyn.

Edited 12 July 2017 by Captain...

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Foxin_mad said:

Terrifying:

 

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21724827-labours-leader-will-badly-disappoint-his-young-supporters-jeremy-corbyn-and-bourgeois-dream

So now I've read it, this article doesn't examine the effect of each of Corbyn's policies in any detail. It just talks about how his voters are the wanna-be middle class and makes a judgement without evidence that Corbyn's policies wouldn't help. There is nothing terrifying - or terribly well researched - about anything in this. 

[Rincewind]

19 hours ago, toddybad said:

It's a fair point but the reality is I probably wouldn't go as far as Labour are currently suggesting on a range of issues. But I do believe in the power of the state to do good.

Many of you appear to go far, far further than even the furthest right members of the Tory party would publically go. 

I genuinely think they're views that are dangerous to the future of this country. 

Especially dangerous when some think the media such as the BBC has a left wing bias. Some would be happy to go back to Dickensian tim es with poor houses and soup kitchens. As long as it wasnt them on the receiving end.

I also think that some of Labour policies may go too far but to many like the low paid, part time workers, disabled, junior  doctors and nurses some hope is better than no hope I do not see a young mother of a disabled child working two part time jobs to put food on the table and pay for child care relating to an MP who has achieved his position via Eton and Oxbridge. It is not envy or jealousy. It is reality. The MP would most likely have voted for a cut to the mother's income linking her with all the other 'scroungers' He would not even walk past a Poundland shop let alone go in or work there.

Labour are not without their share' MPs who do not relate to some people.  There has been an increase in the last few years and some have had it far too easy. Time for a change and a shake up in how politicians view the public not just their friends and themselves.

I see nothing wrong in MPs enhaging with the public and listening to them. After all they work for us and it is their job to do so.

Edited 12 July 2017 by Rincewind

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Foxin_mad said:

Terrifying:

 

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21724827-labours-leader-will-badly-disappoint-his-young-supporters-jeremy-corbyn-and-bourgeois-dream

This is what terrifying looks like:

Theresa May is to oversee £85m in cuts to public health budgets this year, analysis reveals.

Doctors warn cuts will have a ‘damaging impact on people’s health and wellbeing’ and cost the NHS more in the long-run.

Theresa May has been accused of taking her “eye off the ball” over public health as it was revealed budgets for a range of services including sexual health and help to stop smoking face new cuts of £85m.

Local authorities in England are being forced to spend more than 5 per cent less this year on public health initiatives than in 2013-14, according to a new analysis from the King’s Fund.

David Buck, the health think tank’s senior fellow in policy, used data from local governments and the Department of Communities to calculate that planned spending on sexual health services has fallen by £64m, or 10 per cent, over the past four years.

He said cutting spending on sexual health services is "the falsest of false economies and is storing up problems for the future” – especially given recent news that syphilis cases in England have reached their highest level since 1949.

The scale of the cuts revealed by the research would be “devastating for the health of the nation”, according to the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), which said it had “grave concerns” about the findings.

Doctors from the British Medical Association also warned the cuts would have a “damaging impact on people’s health and wellbeing” at a time when a third of British people were projected to be obese by 2030 and smoking accounts for about 100,000 deaths a year in the UK.

Mr Buck told The Independent local authorities are not to blame for the new cuts, as“it’s a sign of central government taking their eye off the ball on public health”.

Budgets and new responsibilities transferred to councils under the coalition government appeared to be a “real commitment” to public health, but “as austerity bit, the local government budgets were a much easier target, whatever they happened to be, than NHS budgets,” he added.

While some spending will be protected, such as promoting exercise and some children’s services, most are facing a cut, said the King’s Fund.

Tackling drug misuse in adults will face a 5.5 per cent cut of more than £22m, while stop smoking services will fall by almost £16m, a 15 per cent cut, the data showed. The think tank said many of these services have already had to cope with years of falling budgets.

Its latest calculations, based on like-for-like analysis, showed that councils in England will spend £2.52bn on public health services in 2017-18 compared to £2.60bn the previous year.

• Social care funding being used to bail out NHS, local councils warn
• Syphilis cases at highest level since 1949
• Mental health services 'deteriorating despite Government promises'

Once inflation is factored in, it is estimated that planned public health spending is more than 5 per cent lower on a like-for-like basis in 2017-18 than it was in 2013-14.

It said the reductions follow Government cuts in public health funding of at least £600m by 2020/21, on top of £200m already cut from the 2015/16 budget.

Shirley Cramer, chief executive of RSPH, said the “short-sighted” cuts to sexual health, drug misuse and stop smoking services would save money in the short term but cost “far more over coming decades”.

“When the NHS itself has called for a ‘radical upgrade in prevention and public health’ to save the service from collapse, it is reckless to be doing the exact opposite,” she said.

“The fallout from these cuts is already being felt in rising rates of sexually transmitted infections, and will hit our health service ever harder further down the line. Politicians have long operated on election-cycle funding, but this must change if we are to protect our NHS and the public’s health.”

Sharon Hodgson, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Public Health, echoed Ms Cramer’s concerns that the cuts would have a “devastating impact for communities across England”.

“The long-term impact will be to make the population sicker and drive even greater pressures on the NHS,” she said. “The Government should be doing much more to invest in public health services and protect the health of the nation for the years to come.”

The warning comes after figures out last month showed the number of cases of syphilis have reached the highest level since 1949.

Cases of syphilis across England have rocketed since 2012, according to data from Public Health England.

In 2016, there were 5,920 syphilis diagnoses – an increase of 12 per cent from the previous year (from 5,281 to 5,920) and a 97 per cent rise from 2012 (from 3,001 to 5,920).

[Guest Foxin_mad]

That's not terrifying its mostly unfounded nonsense. Its no more founded on fact or policy than my excellent well rounded fair article which offers criticism of both sides.

 

No one is forcing local authorities to make cuts to frontline services, except their own inefficiencies and bad management. Just because a think tank says, probably funded by the left does not make it a fact.

 

Again the facts are with no jobs, no business and no tax income Labour will be unable to fund their spending binge anyway. That's what is terrifying. Its all very well me saying I am going to give every local authority another 8 billion pounds to spend but the question is where does that 8 billion come from and the answer is not fictional tax revenues that will never ever happen, or more borrowing.

Edited 12 July 2017 by Foxin_mad

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

That's not terrifying its mostly unfounded nonsense. Its no more founded on fact or policy than my excellent well rounded fair article which offers criticism of both sides.

 

No one is forcing local authorities to make cuts to frontline services, except their own inefficiencies and bad management. Just because a think tank says, probably funded by the left does not make it a fact.

 

Again the facts are with no jobs, no business and no tax income Labour will be unable to fund their spending binge anyway. That's what is terrifying. Its all very well me saying I am going to give every local authority another 8 billion pounds to spend but the question is where does that 8 billion come from and the answer is not fictional tax revenues that will never ever happen, or more borrowing.

Oh of course, because all the businesses that were paying a corporation tax of 30% when Britain was booming during the noughties ate suddenly going to up and leave the world's fifth largest economy if they have to pay 26%